The City That Killed the President: A Cultural History of Dallas and the Assassination

A creative cultural history of Dallas through the lens of its defining 20th century event: JFK’s assassination. The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 shocked America. Instantly, the city was blamed for the killing, labeled the City of Hate. In the half century since the President’s murder, this city’s artists and writers have produced important, if often overlooked, work that speaks to the difficult burden of our civic shaming.

Here are the works of poetry, theater, journalism, art, the actions of our citizens and political leaders, all the fragments of our cultural life that address this often-tortured local history. This fitful discourse is a window into Dallas itself, a city reluctant to grapple with its past.